Driver dev defends Uplay Passport

Publisher execs claim that the public like them. Gamers have often seemed less enthused. But the founder of Driver developer Ubisoft Reflections has defended the new Uplay Passport model.

Like EA’s Online Pass, games that partake in the Uplay Passport include a code in the box that can be redeemed to access extra content or key features such as online play. Second hand buyers must pay a premium to access the same content.

"If people don’t buy the game when it first comes out and wait and pay for rental or for second-hand usage, then the publisher sees absolutely nothing of that," Martin Edmonson told Eurogamer.

"I see how much work, effort, money and risk goes into the creation of these games. I think it’s entirely right that everybody who’s involved – the people who take the risk – should have a reasonable chance at a financial recouping from that.

"If you want these games to be produced at the level they’re being produced at, the cost they’re being produced at… Everyone wants something for nothing, don’t they? They’re very, very expensive and high risk – huge risk, actually."

Furthermore, Edmonson reckons that the new model is most certainly here to stay. "It’s one of those things that we just have to get used to," he added, "it’s going to happen."